


Dinner For Two

by Moorishflower



Series: A Cold Academic Hell [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam would say that they're like the Lady and the Tramp, except he doesn't want to give his brother another reason to make fun of him. Besides, Gabriel probably smells better than a stray dog. Part of the Cold Academic Hell 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner For Two

“So,” Sam says. He fiddles with his napkin, wondering if he’s supposed to…do something. _Shit_. Nice restaurant. Napkin goes on his lap. He quickly unfolds the napkin, white and pristine as the driven snow, and spreads it across his lap. His forks, knives, and spoons seem, abruptly, naked, lying there on the table without a napkin to cushion them. Sam clears his throat. “This is…nice.”

Gabriel looks nervous. Maybe as nervous as Sam feels. Sam wonders if the same thing is running through his head - _we kissed does that mean something, what if this all goes horribly, what if, what…_

The restaurant is one of those trendy Asian fusion places, decorated with a bunch of delicate-looking paper lanterns and statues of Fu dogs. Sam didn’t catch the name of it, and everything on the menu is pretty much incomprehensible to him. When was the last time he went out to a nice place? Had it been with Jessica? She’d liked restaurants like this one, but Sam had never had the money, and he’d always tried to convince her that she didn’t need to pay, they could go somewhere a little cheaper, he knew a really nice sushi bar down the road…

“It is,” Gabriel says. “Nice.”

They sit in silence for what feels like a long time.

It’s probably only like, thirty seconds.

“We can split it,” Sam blurts out. Gabriel stares at him, and Sam glances down at his lap. He rubs his thumbs against the napkin. It’s soft. It would make a better washcloth than a napkin, he thinks. “The…the cheque.”

“ _Oh_. No, I said it’d be my treat. I’m not gonna make you pay for this, Sam. College drains more than just your energy, I know that.”

“But…”

Gabriel holds up a finger. “No buts. And don’t think that I’m trying to, I don’t know, feminize you or anything, either, ‘cause that’s bullshit.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Well…good.”

Their waiter drifts by, refilling their water glasses. “Are you ready to order?” he asks, and Sam glances quickly – frantically – at his still-closed menu.

“Uh,” he says. “Maybe?”

“I’ll give you two a few more minutes.”

And then they’re alone again. There’s a candle in the center of their table, one of those long, fancy taper ones. Sam stares at it as he says, “Next time, then? We’ll split it?”

“Next time?”

“Yeah.” He glances cautiously at Gabriel, smiling. “I mean, if you want a next time.”

“Oh! No, I do, I do.”

Sam opens his menu, still grinning. It’s uncontrollable at this point, he thinks. He’s happy. He’s _really_ happy.

“Any suggestions?” he asks. “I don’t usually eat at places like this.”

“The Chilean seabass is really good. Or the Pad Thai.”

“Pad Thai it is. What about you?”

“I’m probably gonna go with the crab fried rice. Or just the crab.”

“You like seafood?”

Gabriel sets his menu down, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. “I like a lot of things. There’s something sort of awesome about finger foods though. Something you can pull apart and eat with your bare hands.”

Sam laughs. “You sound like my brother. He worships at the altar of wings, too. I can get behind crab, though. Wings, not so much.”

“Oh? You’ll have to come by my place sometime. I make the _best_ honey bacon barbeque wings.”

“Honey _bacon_?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, kiddo.”

They both laugh, and their waiter chooses that moment to come back around to their table. Sam orders his Pad Thai while still trying to stifle his laughter.

~

They talk about everything. School, sure, Gabriel’s job, and Sam’s classes, but also about current events, the bands they like, the places they like to go. Gabriel’s big on nature – not gardens, not cultivated things, but wild places, places where the trees grow as tall as houses. He used to go camping, when he was a child. It had been a family thing. Castiel had never liked it. Castiel, according to Gabriel, is fond of his creature comforts.

“And you?” Sam asks, and Gabriel grins.

“Of course. But there’s something about going out into a forest by yourself, you know? Or…with someone you’re close to. What about you? What do you like to do?”

Sam is boring. Ten times more boring than Gabriel, who likes camping and fishing and all the fine things in life. Gabriel, who likes to go wine tasting and who readily knows where to get the best Asian fusion cuisine in town. Sam clears his throat, moving his Pad Thai around on his plate. What does he like to do? He likes to play video games, but…will Gabriel think he’s childish if he says that? The average age of the modern gamer is…what, thirty, now? It’s not a kid’s pastime anymore, but…

“I like to read,” he says, and Gabriel leans forward, interested.

“Oh? What kinds of books?”

 _High fantasy. Sci-fi. Comics. Legal and religious texts. Philosophy. Oh my God, I’m such a huge nerd._ And Dean isn’t here to stop him from saying, “I really like David Farland.” _God_.

“David Farland?”

Sam swallows. “Yeah. He’s, uh. He writes fantasy and sci-fi. He’s really good.”

“ _Oh_.” Gabriel rests his chin in his hands, batting his eyelashes. “You’re one of _those_.” And Sam immediately – _immediately_ – feels like he’s made a mistake.

“I know,” he says, looking down at his plate. “It’s…not exactly the sort of thing you expect of a future lawyer.” The rice noodles seem to stare back up at him, accusingly. _You’ve ruined your chance, Sam. Not even Jessica understood how much your fantasy books meant to you when you were a kid._ Sam – perhaps a bit viciously – scoops up some of the noodles and chicken and eats it.

“No, no,” Gabriel says. “That’s not it. I mean, fantasy isn’t my thing, but I like a good sci-fi movie. I loved Star Wars.”

 _Oh_ , Sam wants to say. Movies aren’t the same as books, but at least Gabriel isn’t going to mock him or anything.

“Besides, it’d be like a pot calling the kettle black sort of thing. I’m into horror.”

Sam blinks. He cautiously glances up, swallowing and then blowing his bangs away from his eyes. Gabriel looks perfectly sincere. “Horror?”

“Yeah, horror _everything_. Zombies, slasher flicks, Stephen King novels…Shit, you should see my library. Not as big as Castiel’s, sure, and not exactly as _refined_ , but still. I’ve got a pretty nice collection going on. Don’t tell anybody, though. The bigwigs up top tend to disapprove when it comes out that their employees have actual lives outside of the college. Especially lives that involve…well, a _ton_ of gore is probably putting it mildly.”

Sam smiles, hesitantly. “I’ve never really given the horror genre much thought. Is it _all_ …zombies and gore?” Sam’s not a huge fan of gore. It doesn’t bother him, but it’s not something he wants to wake up and watch over breakfast. But Gabriel shakes his head, letting his hands drop so that his forearms rest on the table. He’s leaning so far over that Sam’s worried gravity will step in and make him fall over.

“Aw, no, it’s not _all_ blood and guts. You got highbrow horror like Lovecraft and Poe, of course. Classics, you know? And then the modern classics, like Army of Darkness and King and The Omen…But some of it’s really complex. It’s not always just a monster of the week sort of thing.”

“Huh,” Sam says. “That’s…that sounds interesting.” And it does. It really does. Gabriel grins at him.

“Maybe you and I, we could have a movie marathon sometime? You know, turn off all the lights, make some popcorn, not sleep for a couple days…”

Sam laughs. “Sounds like a plan.”

Gabriel gestures at his plate. “You done with your food?”

“I think so. Ready to go?”

“Yep.”

By the time their waiter comes around with the check and a take-out box, they’ve worked out their next…Gabriel calls it an “outing,” but Sam, in his head, is calling it their second date. There’s a drive-in movie theatre that Gabriel knows, just past the edges of town, and Sundays are horror marathon days. They can bring their own popcorn, and booze, and blankets and pillows. They can camp out all night, if they want.

“It’s your brother’s birthday soon, isn’t it?” Gabriel asks, pulling out his wallet and searching for a credit card.

“Yeah. He’s gonna be twenty-eight. Says he feels old.”

“Shit,” Gabriel laughs, as their waiter discretely carries his card away. “I remember being twenty-eight. I just got my Masters, but I didn’t want to do anything with it. Spent a year following this band I liked. Looking back on it, it was a stupid thing to do, but I had the time of my life. No one to answer to but myself, taking odd jobs in every town we stopped in…I felt like a nomad. There were times when it was amazing.”

“What was the band called?”

“It was a lame band. Don’t judge me.”

“Tell me!”

“The Ghost Facers.”

Sam snorts. “ _Wow_.”

“Hey! What’d I say about judging?”

Gabriel stands as their waiter returns with their receipt and his card; he replaces everything, and then pockets his wallet and pouts. “I didn’t mock you for liking sci-fi, did I?”

“No, no, you’re right, it’s just…that’s kind of a stupid name.”

“I told you they were lame.”

Sam grabs his coat off the back of the chair, and then stands as well, swinging the coat around his shoulders in order to put it on.

The following sequence of events seems to happen in slow motion:

The coat swings around his shoulders. It’s not a heavy coat, it’s fleece and warm and it’s the only coat that Sam owns that still fits him because all his other coats are too small by about two sizes (Dean hasn’t thrown them out, too sentimental, too sure that they’ll be able to use them for something, someday). Still, the sleeves of it swing around, and Sam’s arm swings with it, arcing over the table.

He feels the edge of his wrist hit something – his water glass, empty, thank God – and he immediately turns his head to look while his body, not getting the message, continues to try and take a step around the table and forward.

Sam catches his balance relatively quickly, used to the perils of having limbs that are longer than anyone else’s.

Gabriel, taking a step to the side in order to try and stop the empty water glass from falling, does not.  
“ _Shit_ ,” Gabriel says, more confused than worried or afraid, and Sam sees him grope for the edge of the table in order to try and right himself. He misses.

Sam does not.

He’s not sure about the events that happen between Gabriel beginning to trip and Sam catching him, but what seems like a second later his arms are full, and it’s Gabriel, one hand clutching his shoulder and the other curled around his waist in a death grip. He is, Sam thinks, surprisingly firm. That makes sense, he’s a guy, after all. But still, Sam had been…he’s not sure what he’d been expecting.

Mutual arousal, maybe. Not Gabriel staring up at him like a startled deer.

Except then the confusion and the alarm melts away, and Gabriel’s arm around his waist gets a little looser as he adjusts his balance, and then tighter again, for no reason at all.

“G-Gabriel?”

“That a chopstick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Sam automatically tries to twist his pelvis away, but Gabriel holds him fast, and…and everyone in the restaurant is looking at them, Gabriel supporting himself on Sam using mostly just his own body weight, Sam’s cheeks suddenly flaring crimson, Gabriel’s shit-eating grin. Someone clears their throat. An elderly woman at the table next to theirs smiles beatifically at them, then turns to her companion and whispers, “Young love is _grand_ , isn’t it?”

Still blushing red as a fire truck, Sam hooks one of his arms underneath Gabriel’s, and then, muttering faintly about awful jokes, he hauls his date, and his leftovers, out of the restaurant.

Later, when Sam is getting out of the car in front of the CVS, Gabriel will joke about kissing him good night, about Sam inviting him up for some coffee. And Sam will laugh, because Gabriel raises his eyebrows, suggestively comical, but also because he remembers Gabriel’s expression in the restaurant, right before it had melted into mischief. Startled wonder. Like he hadn’t been able to believe how good things were.

Gabriel jokes about good night kisses, but when Sam leans forward and presses their mouths together he isn’t joking at all.


End file.
